In the rural mountainous west of Massachusetts, close to the town of Colrain, is a settlement that's now called Blandford (named in 1741) but which was originally New Glasgow, or Glascow. The stories of this region were written up by Sumner Gilbert Wood, who wrote Ulster Scots and Blandford Scouts in 1928. I bought a copy of it from the late great Belfast bookdealer Jack Gamble about 30 years ago, but have never sat down to read it. What a treasure trove it turns out to be, and is online here.
Wood understands the great epic adventure, from Scotland to Ulster to the Siege of Derry to America:
To Londonderry fled those people of the Bann waters who might be able to reach that city of refuge. Her heroic stand is the story of the fathers and mothers of the New Hampshire Londonderry, of Blandford, and of many another New England village. Nothing in all history surpasses it in heroism — not Thermopylae, not Rheims... I wish I might here display the roster of the men and women who, later climbing the hills of New Glasgow and building their log houses there, had been crowded behind the bulwarks of that famous “City of Refuge.”
As context, Murray Rothbard, in his Conceived in Liberty (1979), probably drawing upon this speech to the Scotch-Irish Society of America by Prof A. L. Perry, says this:
It might have been expected that the Ulster Scots would choose to settle in Calvinist New England, which was closest to them in religious conviction. But subtle religious differences meant a great deal to the Puritans, and they made the Presbyterians decidedly unwelcome. Indeed, one of the first groups of Ulster immigrants, several hundred strong, arrived at Boston in 1718 to face a decidedly hostile reception. Most were shunted off to Maine and ended in New Hampshire.
One group settled in the frontier town of Worcester, Massachusetts, but was promptly persecuted by the Puritans there. They were coerced into merging their Presbyterian church into the Puritan church and found themselves forced to pay tithes to support their persecutors. To the Presbyterians' petition for relief from the tax, the Worcester township denied their right to independence from the established Puritan church. When the Scots began to build their own church, the Puritans destroyed the building. The hapless Scots were thus forced to move to the more remote western frontier and there founded settlements at Warren and Blandford.
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New Glascow was formed around 1735, by Ulster-Scots families heading westwards and inland. Town meetings were held in 1742, and a Presbyterian congregation soon after, with a John Caldwell preaching to them. They sought permission from the Boston presbytery 'to send to Ireland for a minister'.
A series of candidates appeared and in 1744 the Rev William McClenachan (sometimes spelled as McClenathan) was accepted. He had been living in the Chelsea district of Boston and a few years earlier had married Ann Drummond who had been born in Tyrone. McClenachan was a tempestuous sort - changing denomination a few times in his life. He returned to Chelsea and had a fairly checkered career.
Boston's Presbyterians were pretty much solidly Ulster-Scots:
The Irish Presbytery is mentioned in the Colman MSS in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Collection but its real name was the Presbytery of Boston and the date of its origin and its extinction are alike unknown Among its members were the Rev John Moorhead of Boston, William Johnston and Davidson of Londonderry, William McClenaghan of Blandford Massachusetts, James Morton of Coleraine, Rutherford, Urquhart, John Harvey, and John Caldwell. The Rev Mr Lemercier of the French church in Boston was also a member... The ordination of David McGregoire over the second congregation in Londonderry was accomplished with out the consent of the presbytery... (from here).
The 'French meeting house' in Boston was a Huguenot congregation. As French Calvinists, and as descendants of those who had fled persecution by the French state, they found common interest with the Ulster-Scots Presbyterians in jointly opposing the imperial ambitions of France in North America.
This is an excellent example of where liberty is more important than nationality. The French monarchy and state had a vision for the nation which was narrow and exclusionary. By nationality, the Huguenots were French, but culturally and religiously they were unwelcome within the French state, and so they were excluded and persecuted by the state. The Faneuil family, of the historic Faneuil Hall in Boston, were refugee Huguenot emigrants from La Rochelle to Boston.
• Here's a link to McClenachan's 1745 sermon The Christian Warrior, which he preached on St Patrick's Day in the French meeting house and which was dedicated to General William Pepperel who led an attack on the French in Canada.
• Find out more about Blandford on this Wikipedia page
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